The Contemplations, Rants & Reminiscences of DavidB327

Something Sensational To Read On The Train

Today is 30 years since the great Bob Marley died.It was a great tragedy that such a genius should have been taken from us when he was at the height of his powers.

I never saw him in concert, which of course is something I really regret.I remember the first tour they did in the early 1970s (and their brilliant performance on BBC2), but there were other bands that I’d planned to see at the time.I did buy the records though, and they are some of my favourites.His songs touch me at an emotional level that few artists do- particularly songs such as ‘No woman no cy’, but even more son ‘Redemption song’.

There is this myth that Eric Clapton made reggae popular in the UK by covering “I shot the sheriff”, which is total nonsense.Actually it was the non-reggae artists that caught on to the growing popularity of reggae.I saw dozens of band in the early 1970s, and I would say that about half of them had a token reggae song.Bob Marley’s version of ‘I shot the sheriff’ is the definitive version – end of story

The music will live on , even though the maestro is no longer with us.It deserves to.

From my recollection that whole myth came from EC’s fan base – but at the end of the day, should anyone pay attention to the type of people that wear T-shirts with ‘Eric is God’ on the front? Well yes, someone with a T-shirt that says ‘Derek is Eric’ on the front.

I’m reminded of another weird myth, namely that Arnold Schwarzenegger could not speak English before he made Conan the Barbarian. I know for certain that this isn’t true. I saw Arnie interviewed on the Russell Harty TV programme, just after Pumping Iron. He spoke perfectly fluent English, with an Austrian accent. That was several years before Conan the Barbarian.